Rappresentazione Di Anima Et Di Corpo (de’ Cavalieri) Madrid 2024 Sophia Faltas, Raffaele Giordani, Massimo Lombardi
Information on the Performance
- Work Title: Rappresentazione Di Anima Et Di Corpo   
- Composer: de' Cavalieri Emilio  
- Libretto: Agostino Manni  
- Venue & Opera Company: Teatro Real, Madrid, Spain  
- Recorded: January 2024
- Type: Concert Semi-staged
- Singers: Sophia Faltas, Raffaele Giordani, Massimo Lombardi, André Pérez Muíño, Jan Kullmann, Roberto Rilievi, Guglielmo Buonsanti, Victoria Cassano, Estelle Lefort, Lorant Najbauer, Zsuzsi Tóth
- Conductor: Lionel Meunier  
- Orchestra: Vox Luminis  
- Stage Director: Emilie Lauwers   
- Costume Designer:   
- Lighting Designer: Luc Schaltin  
Information about the Recording
- Published by: myoperaplayer  
- Date Published: 2024  
- Format: Streaming
- Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
- Subtitles: yessubs, essubs  
- Video Recording from: myoperaplayer     FULL VIDEO
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE
Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo (Italian for Portrayal of the Soul and the Body) is a musical work by Emilio de’ Cavalieri to a libretto by Agostino Manni (1548–1618). With it, Cavalieri regarded himself as the composer of the first opera or oratorio. Whether he was actually the first is subject to some academic debate, as is whether the work is better categorized as an opera or an oratorio. It was first performed in Rome in February 1600 in the Oratorio dei Filippini adjacent to the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella.
The first opera
It was imagined during the Renaissance, almost certainly incorrectly, that Greek drama was sung, not declaimed, and that therefore opera was a revival of ancient practice. On 10 November 1600 Emilio de Cavalieri wrote a letter arguing that he, not Jacopo Peri, was the true reviver of Greek style acting with singing, i.e. opera. Peri later deferred to him in the preface to the published version of Euridice in 1601. (Euridice had received its first performance in October 1600). The music historian Joachim Steinheuer comments that Cavalieri was a pioneer of “recitation in singing or ‘recitar cantando’ ”; this type of declamation was a major innovation in enabling the introduction of extended dramatic monologues and dialogues, as required in opera.
Since the Rappresentatione is fully staged, in three acts with a spoken prologue, it can be considered to be the earliest surviving opera